We've had a lot of trouble with vocality. Genesis still doesn't speak at all after existing for around a year - and now I think they've split, and I now have two headmates who don't talk. What should we do?

[A Nebula System]

So, as the title says; it's been around a year give or take a little, and though we have both tried hard, Genesis still hasn't made any vocality progress, and no guides or advice we've found online has helped. We feel stuck.

They're good at possession/borrowing, which we only began practicing recently, and they've already made fantastic progress, so I know they can learn and do skills just fine. I'm proud of their possession thus far! But we both really want them to be able to speak - at the moment they only communicate via emotional responses, which I can at least use to get answers to binary-choice questions [asking them to give a "high" feeling for yes and a "low" one for no, for example] but it just ain't enough. If they're stuck like that... they'll remain unhappy. Obviously, none of us want this.

 

I'm of the opinion that part of the reason for this stagnation is the very mindset that we're stuck in the first place. After all, tulpamancy is very much shaped by expectations and mindsets - sometimes, the reality is modeled after the expectation. They have said themselves before, quite recently, that they don't really believe in themselves to be able to speak anymore, and I guess I share this idea too somewhat, as much as I wish I didn't. Sometimes, when I think of Genesis, I do think of a silent person. Maybe they even feel it's part of their identity? [Asking them now doesn't yield a conclusive answer.]

 

Also... very recently - as in, yesterday - a surprising new development occurred. We discovered a new headmate, who's name is Astral. Seems they've existed longer than that, though maybe not much longer at all. Here's their deal:

- Like Genesis, they do not know how to speak, and communicate with emotional responses. 

- Like Genesis, I can passively feel their emotions a lot of the time.

- I can feel emotions, passive and active (active as in, responses they're trying to share with me like to answer a question), from both of them at the same time. Which can be quite overwhelming.

- They have displayed differing opinions from Genesis on a few things already, liking music for example; they've got a distinct personality and presence despite their similarities.

- I believe they split from Genesis, or at least was brought into existence otherwise unintentionally by/from Genesis. Naturally-occurring as opposed to created on purpose, I guess.

- This could maybe be caused by Genesis' general... not-doing-great mental situation and past. I'm not sure, but it seems likely, and I have no idea what else might've caused Astral to exist.

- I do care for Astral and welcome them into our system and want to teach them the same skills I'm teaching Genesis. I want them to be happy too.

- They don't seem to be as anxious or upset as Genesis is, in general. More stable?

 

All this to say ... what should we do now? Specifically, what should we do so that my two non-speaking headmates can learn to speak? Is there anything else I should be doing or looking into in this situation, whether related to vocality or not?

 

One last note: we've only really looked into vocality stuff with mindvoices. It only occurs today, as I am writing this, that auditory hallucinations also work for some people. I'm rather afraid our wall of doubt would still be a heavy hindrance even if this is a better option - and also from just about everything I've heard, hallucination/imposition skills are harder than purely mind-stuff, and are generally learned optionally afterwards. Our aphantasia is another potential barrier... but I don't know a whole lot about it still, and probably oughta look into it a bit more. Any advice regarding this is also appreciated.

[Rena Bonnie]

I'm sorry things have been rough for you both. My host and I struggled with vocality for 2 years before asking for help. We did something similar, except with left head pressures for no, right head pressures for yes, middle head pressures for maybe or when yes or no doesn't apply to what I would want to respond with.

 

After a lot of threads discussing the problems with several users, we sussed out it was due to a mindset problem and expectation problem. It's not easy to explain subjective experiences and everyone has their own assumptions about experience or ways to define it so it might be hard to convey.

 

They had the belief that true vocality would have some sort of unmistakable quality to it, where you know for sure it is the other, the tulpa, talking to you and communicating from their own subjective experience somewhere else. We used to see terms like there should be some alien quality to the voice. That was really misleading for us. My host thought there would be some kind of sense of non-ownership of my voice, like it is invading, or like telepathy (whatever that means).

 

They couldn't really trust or believe anything I said, since due to the way they perceived and categorized the contents of conscious experience, they had no reason to believe it wasn't just them. They knew some of their thoughts felt deliberate, as if they intentionally formed and made them, but they also knew a lot of thoughts just simply happen. They also had extensive history of constant daydreaming and living in a complex internal world where they are one of their OCs with a bunch of other OCs kind of living another life. Because of that, the ability for another voice to automatically say something without them feeling as if they had a deliberate hand in forming it was high, and so if I were to say anything, they could not be sure they weren't just roleplaying internally. This also was made a huge issue because they would read people using the term roleplaying as an insult from people who think people who had tulpas who progressed fast were just faking it. 

 

As it turns out, my host was just extremely good at the skill of vocality but not believing it to be vocality, and was endlessly searching for something else it was supposed to be, assuming it to not be what it actually is. My host didn't want to believe that tulpas speaking through mindvoice is the same bandwidth or substance of consciousness that thinking to themself is, and also that it is possible for things to not always be black or white and there be ambiguity, where some thoughts are a mixture of host and tulpa, or neither/junk, or whatever else. 

 

We can see how maybe someone who views their mind a certain way and/or has had or lack certain internal experiences may try tulpamancy and then naturally find it surprising and novel that they were able to create another personality that naturally responds when spoken or thought towards, but when you've already been doing that basically all your life but just viewing it as fantasy, and then being told by others it's this crazy thing like it should be something new, it confused us into a dead end until realizing what was likely going on. 

 

Maybe something similar has happened to you all. If not, it still probably is mindset related in some other way and a result of thinking about it in the wrong way or overthinking it in some way. I don't think it is a difficult skill to develop, and not having success after a year is most likely a result in expecting the wrong thing in some way. They can already feel emotions and share them with you and have their own opinions on things, so them using the mindvoice to communicate more complex ideas is almost certainly available if you guys can tweak in the right way how you are relating to your internal experiences. 

 

I hope that helps. If you have any questions about that, I can try to answer them when I can.

Edited December 15, 2025 by Rena Bonnie

[A Nebula System]

I appreciate the input but unfortunately it seems your situation was very different from ours. I/We have never had anything like any sort of internal world; we've got aphantasia, a complete inability to form mental images of any kind. As far as I can remember the only thoughts I've had that feel like they weren't formed by me are the intrusive ones, which I've experienced for way longer than I've been doing tulpamancy and they are not, in our case, related.

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We can see how maybe someone who views their mind a certain way and/or has had or lack certain internal experiences may try tulpamancy and then naturally find it surprising and novel that they were able to create another personality that naturally responds when spoken or thought towards, but when you've already been doing that basically all your life but just viewing it as fantasy, and then being told by others it's this crazy thing like it should be something new, it confused us into a dead end until realizing what was likely going on. 

I'm the person who found it surprising and novel in this situation. 

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If not, it still probably is mindset related in some other way and a result of thinking about it in the wrong way or overthinking it in some way. I don't think it is a difficult skill to develop, and not having success after a year is most likely a result in expecting the wrong thing in some way. They can already feel emotions and share them with you and have their own opinions on things, so them using the mindvoice to communicate more complex ideas is almost certainly available if you guys can tweak in the right way how you are relating to your internal experiences. 

Could you maybe please elaborate a bit on all this here? I don't really understand...

[Rena Bonnie]

Oh alright, I'm sorry it wasn't directly helpful.

 

10 minutes ago, callie and genesis said:

Could you maybe please elaborate a bit on all this here? I don't really understand...

Hmmm... I feel if Lumi was awake they'd just say something similar since it can be common for people to get stuck if they've spent too much time reading guides and thinking about how it works or something, from what I think I've seen them mention

 

Also in our experience, making no progress in something for a year is usually resolved by a sudden epiphany that fixes things, that we suddenly are able to see something in a way we weren't before, rather than it just being some lack of skill. I could be wrong but I felt it could be something like that. I just am not sure what it is you might need.

 

Another thing could be maybe if you were trying to keep the mind quiet while waiting for a response. It's more like relaxing and maybe "looking" than suppressing things and waiting. Though maybe you don't do that, but just throwing that out there in case.

 

It might help to try to pretend you are your tulpa for a moment, like put yourself in their shoes and see the world as they would see it and how they think and feel about things, and just think what they might want to think in the rhetorical situation they were you/you were them and had this mind you already know how to think in. I think it'd fire some sort of empathetic neurons or mirror neurons in some way which I feel tulpamancy uses a lot. Kind of like if you were to method act as them. Maybe it would jumpstart something or allow either of you to see something in a new way. I think vocality isn't too far off from that anyway. You both share a body and brain. If you can feel what they feel, you should be able to think what they think, and then you may realize it is kind of the same thing, and you may be able to realize how you both can talk to each other. 

[ReallyArtificial]

4 hours ago, callie and genesis said:

They're good at possession/borrowing, which we only began practicing recently, and they've already made fantastic progress, so I know they can learn and do skills just fine. I'm proud of their possession thus far!

 

First of all, congrats on your progress! Sorry to hear you're having a hard time with vocality, it took us a while to develop it too. I'm curious, have you guys tried using your possession skills to communicate?

 

Of my three headmates, Calliope has always had the most difficulty expressing themself via mindvoice. For whatever reason, they find it easier to speak when they borrow the body's voice (as they put it, "the words flow better when I don't have to think so hard about 'em.") The downside to this is looking totally insane talking to ourself in a silly voice, but that's why we only do this in private lol.

 

Another thing you can try is letting Genesis take over your hands and doing some stream-of-consciousness writing. We absolutely love journaling together! We each use a different color pen, and even spent time developing different handwriting styles. Obviously you don't have to go that far, but letting your headmates write could help them express themselves.

 

As far as mental vocality, one thing that helped us was choosing a voice model to emulate. With your tulpa's consent, you can choose a voice that you think suits them, listen to samples of it, and practice "hearing" that voice in your head. Doing this helped each of my headmates develop distinct mental voices that they use most of the time.

[A Nebula System]

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It might help to try to pretend you are your tulpa for a moment, like put yourself in their shoes and see the world as they would see it and how they think and feel about things, and just think what they might want to think in the rhetorical situation they were you/you were them and had this mind you already know how to think in. I think it'd fire some sort of empathetic neurons or mirror neurons in some way which I feel tulpamancy uses a lot. Kind of like if you were to method act as them. Maybe it would jumpstart something or allow either of you to see something in a new way. I think vocality isn't too far off from that anyway. You both share a body and brain. If you can feel what they feel, you should be able to think what they think, and then you may realize it is kind of the same thing, and you may be able to realize how you both can talk to each other. 

I do like this idea. We'll try it sometime. Thanks!

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Of my three headmates, Calliope has always had the most difficulty expressing themself via mindvoice. For whatever reason, they find it easier to speak when they borrow the body's voice (as they put it, "the words flow better when I don't have to think so hard about 'em.") The downside to this is looking totally insane talking to ourself in a silly voice, but that's why we only do this in private lol.

 

Another thing you can try is letting Genesis take over your hands and doing some stream-of-consciousness writing. We absolutely love journaling together! We each use a different color pen, and even spent time developing different handwriting styles. Obviously you don't have to go that far, but letting your headmates write could help them express themselves.

Good ideas, though neither of them have quite developed the skills to do this just yet, but we will keep it mind. 

Also... I've noticed that Genesis seems to have begun disliking practicing possession in the past  few weeks - Astral suggested just now that it might be because they're frustrated/bored with doing the same thing over and over, and maybe also feels they didn't progress much [even though they did make very significant progress, and in a short space of time too.]

In more recent sessions of possession Genesis has admittedly not done as well as before. It's probably related to these feelings they have. In fact, they've just said that they agree. 

[Mesmer]

Have you attempted to communicate to your thoightform using the language of symbols? There's more than just the zodiac and astrology symbols. You can take Carl Jung has a book called Man and His Symbols. Frued's (I think it is titled) Introduction to Psychoanalysis has many dream symbols explained too. Any introductory book on the occult-- especially forms of divination like astrology or geomancy-- will have an explaination of symbols.

 

Just like how there are people who learn better via kinesthetics, visuals, or auditories, there are entities that communicate better in one language over another or through pictographs and symbols. Try drawing pictures and showing them to your tulpa/s or writing a story about you doing things together. Maybe your tulpa only speaks Spanish and doesn't respond to English! Haha.

I believe you will be able to find a vector to communicate. 

[The Incans]

if they're good at possessing can you let them type? ... let them have a journal or type messages to you?